


Shadow Puppets

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Blowjobs, Canon-Compliant, M/M, Mutual Pining, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 05:25:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14181774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: The times Flint and Silver see each other undress before they finally can take no more of their thirst.





	Shadow Puppets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Magnetism_bind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/gifts).



> Thank you, Sally, for this very inspirational prompt! And happy 1 year anniversary of my death, everyone!

The first time it happens, they’re on the Spanish warship, and it takes Flint some time to notice he’s staring while Silver is hastily divesting himself of his clothes. The shadows play over his skin in a subtle chiaroscuro, a ray of light from an open porthole cuts him in half as it slices across his muscular back, and it is only when Flint follows the point of light to its inevitable end, as it distorts itself over Silver’s pert ass, that he finally remembers to avert his eyes.

Silver slips the dead Spaniard’s shirt over his tanned skin and Flint licks his lips as his fingers play with the hilt of his blade, weighing it in his hand against his own self-denial. It is neither the time nor the place, but it is the second time that he had pressed his body against Silver’s with the intent of slicing open his throat, and instead noticed how very much like the sea - immense and impenetrable - his eye are. He pretends he did not feel Silver’s body rising to meet his like a wave. Something threatening to subsume him in the undertow.

“Let’s go,” Flint says, and Silver follows him out of the darkness onto the deck.

***

They are isolated from the crew, yet Silver has never felt more a part of something. His blood is pounding in his ears, and it’s no wonder: he has just witnessed something so horrifying in its conception and execution that it makes his mind spin. More so because he isn’t horrified by it. He’s drawn to Flint, this monster with the blood of his own crew on his hands, who had playfully maneuvered them all like chess pieces exactly where he wanted them, all so he could take the opponent’s queen and become king again. 

Silver watches as Flint washes his hands. He wonders if it is the imaginary blood he wishes to wash off, like Pilate. Water streams from Flint’s face, translucent drops catching the sunlight as they drip off his flamed beard.

“Making yourself presentable for Dufresne?” Silver scoffs. But then Flint’s shirt is on the floor at his feet and his throat is parched as water drips down Flint’s chest in slithering trails over the terrain of his wheat colored hair. 

“It’s important that he remember himself,” Flint speaks quietly as he passes the washcloth carefully over his bullet wound. He’s lucky the bullet went through him, Silver thinks. He’s lucky he fell into the sea and that the salt from the sea had managed to disinfect the torn flesh. He’s lucky Silver was there to reel him in like some unruly catch of the day. Silver wishes he could reel himself in now, but he stands there, like a fish himself, gasping for air that won’t come.

He wants to reach out and press his fingers against the openings again. Not to staunch the bleeding, as he once did, but to cause pain. He wants Flint to _see_ him. He wants Flint never to look at him again. He wants to press his lips against the ravaged skin and drink his blood.

He’s terrified of everything he wants. If he were to reach out and touch Flint, even for a moment, it would consume him.

***

It’s hot. It’s always hot on Nassau, but the damned siege isn’t making it any easier. Flint will not remove the Spanish leather he has wrapped around himself like a kingly mantle. But Silver and his rolled up sleeves are there too, skin glistening with perspiration, leaning a little too close, speaking a little too softly, as if begging for Flint to lean in as well. 

Since he’s seen the exposed planes of that body their first day on the warship, the smallest slip of skin sends Flint’s mind on a long journey. At the moment, his eyes are trailing up and down Silver’s evenly tanned forearm, taking in the veins and the ligaments, the thick knuckles and the long fingers, hands so expressive they could almost double for his tongue.

He’s been staying in the captain’s cabin along with the vanguard because Flint wants him close. He wants him far. He wants him out of his life so he can forget the feel of his body as he pressed the blade right under his prominent Adam’s apple. He _wants_ him.

“Damn, it’s hotter than hell today,” Silver says and his shirt goes flying into his hammock. A long quill stills in Flint’s hand. What was he writing anyways? A supply list, right.

What was it in Silver’s eyes when he’d seen him speaking with Miranda? Flint cannot fathom. But Silver’s nipples are small and brown against his skin and his waist is thick with coils of muscles that criss-cross his body from front to back. An unexpectant column of strength. And Flint very much wants to wrap his legs around that column, but he also doesn’t know what to do about thoughts like that, except perhaps to attribute them to heatstroke.

“Will you get these when you go into town?” he asks weakly, as he pushes the sheet of paper towards Silver. “And what are you gonna do?” Silver asks. Their fingers brush, shocking Flint, who’s pretty sure it was entirely unnecessary for their hands to touch in order for Silver to pick that piece of paper up off his desk. 

But he can’t tell him what he’s going to do when that door shuts. There is a distinct voice from his past telling him he should know no shame, but he _does_. About this, he does.

***

Silver has already made up his mind. He’s already set the wheels in motion. There is nothing they can do to turn back now. Flint lied to him. And much though it did not surprise him, it still _hurt_. He’d been a fool to think they could have truly been partners, that they could be anything other than what they ostensibly were: two bad men tolerating each other for a greater purpose. When had that purpose changed? 

It’s too late to turn back now, and perhaps that is why Silver refuses to avert his eyes this time, as Flint shakes off the leather coat and pulls off his boots. He had given his cabin to the lady, Mrs. Barlow, and the girl they’d stolen from Vane. Now he’s bunking down for the night in Eleanor Guthrie’s tavern, no doubt mind full of future glories which he isn’t sharing with anyone. Which he isn’t sharing with _you_ , Silver’s mind corrects.

When this is all over, he will leave, and he will never see Flint again. Why should he look away now when it might be his one chance to… what? Be seen?

Silver shrugs off his own jacket, the one he’d taken off the dead Spaniard, the one he’s been wearing like a trophy to remind himself of the day he and Flint had done the impossible together. He had followed that man unto death, and he was still alive to tell the tale. Silver pulls his shirt over his head too. This time, he wills Flint to look at him, just as he wants to feast his eyes on Flint. The candlelight plays along the walls, turning their shadows into formless beasts. When Silver moves his arm, his shadow touches Flint’s.

***

Silver’s exposed body is a challenge. It is the Devil’s laughter in the face of God. And when had Flint ever shirked from a challenge? He meets it head on by pulling his own shirt from his body. When he inhales, the flames of the candles flicker towards him. It makes their shadows quake where they lie fallen onto the walls, like dead soldiers.

Silver’s tongue snakes out and folds over his lower lip and Flint has to wonder what he would taste like. Silver isn’t even bothering to look away. His gaze lies heavily against Flint’s skin, like the Spanish leather did before he finally made the effort to pull it off. He finds himself unwilling to divest himself of Silver’s gaze. He finds he rather enjoys to bear up against the weight of it. He looks down upon his own body, where the scars from the past few months alone have rendered him unrecognizable to himself. Not to Silver though, this is the only version of Flint he’s ever seen.

His own body is strangely unblemished and Flint wants to write a shared history into it with his teeth and his nails, scraping at that sun-kissed skin until he is the only thing imprinted upon that perfect flesh. 

“Captain,” Silver is the first to break their silence.

“Shut up,” Flint says and he stretches out his arm, like his own shadow-puppet. “Come here.”

***

Silver’s fingers are in Flint’s hair while the captain’s hands are tugging at the material of Silver’s trousers, yanking them down his hips, pushing them down his thighs. His hands press against Silver’s warm flesh like they want to sear themselves there, possessive and fierce, and Silver wishes they had more time. Once that gold is his, all he can do is run. But at the moment, the gold in his hand is the strands of the captain’s hair as he claims his cock with one sure slide of his mouth. He sucks at Silver like a man who has hungered for far too long and Silver’s fingers curl around the back of his thick neck and hold on for dear life. 

“Oh _god_ , Captain…” Silver whimpers at the slide of Flint’s tongue. Flint is beautiful like this, with eyes closed in bliss, cheeks hollowed as he sucks his cock with singular concentration. Silver wants to remember him like this. But also he wants the feel of that knife against his throat. He wants Flint on top of him, beneath him, all around him. He wants to hear Flint say his name.

He comes when Flint’s nails scrape two angry paths across his lower back, his body convulsing, his knees growing weak, until Flint is cradling him in his own lap, arms wrapped around his ribs far more gently than Silver deserves.

***

“It is all about to change,” Flint whispers into Silver’s neck as he falls asleep.

He thinks of those words later, as he watches Silver toss and turn upon his windowsill. He presses his lips to Silver’s perspiration-covered brow and squeezes his hand.

“You’re still beautiful,” he confesses against the delicate shell of Silver’s ear. When Silver wakes up, he will tell him the news himself. He will tell him there is a life beyond the loss of his leg, beyond the Spanish gold. He will invite Silver to walk with him into the darkness, as long as he’s still willing to meet him halfway there.


End file.
